Oberlin Heritage Center Blog

Archive for the ‘Oberlin Heritage Center Collections’ Category

As a police officer with the City of Oberlin Police Department, I spend a lot of time patrolling the streets and neighborhoods. Although I’m not sure of the exact number of miles driven or hours spent on patrol during the past seven years, I do know that it’s probably a significant number. Any good cop will tell you the key to patrolling the streets, is knowing the streets. What makes Oberlin unique in this aspect is that while doing research for another topic, I came across maps which showed streets that have drastically changed over time, no longer exist, and in some cases, “kinda-sorta” still exist. It caught my interest and I decided to document and write about it while working overtime on a particularly quiet Sunday dayshift.

Please click on an image to view it in a larger format.

FRANKFORT STREET

Atlas and Directory of Lorain County Ohio, The American Atlas Company, Cleveland, Ohio, 1896

Frankfort Street ran eastbound & westbound between Water Street, which is modern day South Park Street, and Spring Street. These maps show the location of Frankfort Street just to the south of Groveland Street.

Photo by Bashshar Wiley, 2018

Although Frankfort Street still appears on some maps, today it’s essentially a private driveway for the residents at 173 South Park Street.

RAILROAD STREET

Atlas of Lorain County Ohio, D. J. Lake and Co., 1874

Railroad Street was located north of the old railroad tracks, with Sumner Street to the south. Railroad Street ran parallel with the railroad tracks and was accessed by Water Street (South Park) and the intersection of Mechanic Street and Spring Street. Mechanic Street to the west of Water Street would become Locust Street and to the east would become Frankfort Street. An interesting fact about Railroad Street is that on October 25, 1926, a homicide took place at the Chester Durham residence located on the corner of Railroad Street and Spring Street when he was shot and killed by William Whiteside after a drunken disagreement following money owed during a card game.

Photo by Bashshar Wiley, 2018

This photo shows the intersection of Groveland Street and Spring Street looking southbound to the Spring Street Extension. Further south would’ve been the intersection of Spring Street, Frankfort Street and Railroad Street. Today, it’s used to access the bike path and Oberlin Community Garden located behind Groveland Street.

Photo by Bashshar Wiley, 2018

Today, Railroad Street no longer exists and cannot be seen from South Park Street or the bike path which has replaced the old railroad tracks. This private driveway of 225 South Park Street would’ve been the approximate location of the west side access to Railroad Street.

SOUTH PROSPECT STREET & SOUTH CEDAR STREET

Atlas of Lorain County Ohio, D. J. Lake and Co., 1874

At one time, South Prospect Street continued, or was envisioned to continue, south of Morgan Street, over the railroad tracks, past Follett (Lincoln) Street and ended at what is today West Hamilton Street. Additionally, prior to the construction of the Morgan Street Reservoir, South Cedar Street, then known as West Street and later Cedar Avenue, continued south of Morgan Street and ended at Follett (Lincoln) Street.

Photos by Bashshar Wiley, 2018

Today, South Prospect Street ends at Morgan Street other than a gravel driveway which leads to private residences. Going south past the gravel driveway leads to Ladies Grove, which is a series of walking paths connecting to The Arboretum.

Photos by Bashshar Wiley, 2018

PENFIELD STREET

Atlas and Directory of Lorain County Ohio, The American Atlas Company, Cleveland, Ohio, 1896

Penfield Street was accessed just to the south of Johnson House on South Professor Street. It also connected to Cedar Avenue, which stopped at Morgan Street but then continued on the south side of the Morgan Street Reservoir to Follett (Lincoln) Street. Another interesting note about this map is that it also shows Culvert Street and Catherine Street between the railroad tracks and Follett (Lincoln) Street which both no longer exist. Additionally, South Prospect Street has been changed to a “Vacated Street.”

By 1912, Penfield Street still existed although the sections of South Professor and South Cedar Streets which ran south of Morgan Street have been removed.

Photos by Bashshar Wiley, 2018

In 2018, Penfield Street is simply a gravel driveway access to The Arboretum located behind a locked gate which can only be accessed by Oberlin College Campus Safety. The Arboretum is accessible to the public from Morgan Street.

HOVEY LANE

Photos by Bashshar Wiley, 2018

Hovey Lane is partially a gravel driveway access for the private residence of 234 East Lorain Street and continues northbound to the Oberlin High School football field. My experience with Hovey Lane occurred while training a new officer on the midnight shift. At approximately 6:00am, I instructed my trainee to drive up Hovey Lane and use it as a cut-through to patrol the Oberlin High School football field. As we continued northbound up the drive, we could feel our patrol vehicle sinking in the mud. I instructed my trainee to “gun it” and informed him I would take the blame if we got stuck. Thankfully, our all-wheel drive Ford Explorer with the police interceptor package was able to power through the thick, muddy terrain. At shift change, one of the sergeants coming on duty noticed our cruiser in the parking lot, now covered in mud, and asked us “who went mudding?” I immediately pointed at my trainee and stated “he did it.” My sergeant then rolled his eyes in disappointment, instructed us to wash off the mud-caked cruiser and went into his office.

Oberlin Weekly News, May 6, 1881

Another interesting piece of Oberlin history is that Frank Hovey served as the Oberlin Village Marshal during the 1800s prior to his sudden resignation during a council meeting on May 6, 1881. Frank Hovey would then be replaced by Constable Franklin Stone.

Thank you for reading.

If you are interested in viewing any of the atlases used in this post, please contact the Oberlin Heritage Center, at (440) 774-1700 or history@oberlinheritage.org, to set up a research appointment.

For the past 5 1/2 years I’ve been a police officer with the Oberlin Police Department. Prior to being employed by the city, I lived in Oberlin until the age of 11 when I moved to the Village of Grafton. Growing up, I became enamored with history due to an exceptional teacher I had while attending Open Door Christian School in Elyria. At the same time, I had a strong interest in law enforcement and investigations due to the fact my father worked as a detective after retiring at the rank of sergeant.

My father, Bill Wiley, has seen just about everything there is during his law enforcement career which spans decades. This includes murders, arsons, sexual assaults, robberies, shootings and suicides. What is surprising about this fact is that my dad didn’t work for a police department in Cleveland, Akron, Lorain or Elyria. My dad spent 27 years as a police officer in Oberlin, Ohio from 1968-1995.

The quote “it happened in Oberlin” is something I heard many times over the years when my dad would share stories from his career. It’s important to note that while Oberlin is a very safe community, there have been incidents where some dangerous and even deadly occurrences have taken place. Although some of these incidents have been forgotten over time, it’s important to remember there is no such thing as a “crime free” community. In fact, cities and villages, no matter the size, do not have the ability to commit crimes. The unfortunate act of committing a crime is left to the resident or individual “passing through” the city or village to commit such an act.

As a 29 year-old man with interest in history and law enforcement, imagine my surprise when my father emailed me a month ago about an officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty way back in 1881 and completely forgotten about over time. This officer was Constable Franklin Stone, and he was shot and killed in Oberlin, Ohio.

The information provided to me by my dad began when retired Elyria Police Detective Alan Leiby was having a conversation with Oberlin author, Don Hilton, about police officers in Lorain County who had lost their lives in the line of duty. One of these officers, Constable Franklin Stone, was believed to be from Oberlin. Constable Stone’s name was not engraved on any memorial walls, nor was he acknowledged at any police memorials for fallen officers. There were no streets named after him or buildings constructed in his memory. In fact, there was no information at all about Constable Stone. At that point, the three of us were “all in” with conducting our own investigation into the life and unfortunate death of Constable Stone.

From three separate locations, my father, Alan Leiby and I each conducted our own investigation into the Constable Stone case. I don’t know how many times his name was typed into the “Google machine”, in a variety of ways, but anytime information was located, it was shared within our group. Although never in the same room together, we each found clues leading to just what took place back in 1881 on the streets of the “Village of Oberlin” with only a population of 3,242 according to the U.S. Census of 1880.

These “clues” consisted of old newspaper articles from The Oberlin Weekly News, book articles, Lorain County court records, gravesite information and even a map of Oberlin dated from 1876. Nothing was more exciting or rewarding than finding an old newspaper article describing the event. In fact, investigations are my favorite part of my job. Using the information we collected over the course of a two-week investigation, we were able to determine just what exactly took place.

Franklin Stone was born in Pittsfield Township on August 15, 1835. Stone lived there until 1866, when he moved to Iowa, where he remained for three years until relocating to Oberlin on South Professor Street. Stone worked as an agent for the United States Express Company and also owned/operated a carriage and transfer line. In the spring of 1881, Stone was elected marshal (constable) of Oberlin and New Russia Township.

Constable Franklin Stone succumbed to a gunshot wound sustained on May 12th, 1881, after a foot pursuit of a subject whom he was attempting to arrest at approximately 7:00 pm. Stone had arrested a man the previous day in an attempt to serve an assault warrant. The man initially cooperated with Constable Stone and agreed to accompany him to the police station, but then hesitated as they passed a blacksmith shop where his father and brother were working. The family members exited the shop and attacked Constable Stone, allowing the prisoner to escape. Constable Stone swore out warrants for the father and brother and then attempted to serve them the following day. As he attempted to arrest the brother, the man fled on foot with Constable Stone firing at him as he ran southbound on South Main Street. One of the rounds wounded the man, who ran to his home on Mechanic Street (modern day Locust Street). As Constable Stone reached the home, the man’s father stood in the doorway and shot him in the chest with a rifle, causing a serious wound. Constable Stone was taken to his home where he remained until passing away on June 4th, 1881. The man who shot Constable Stone was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was pardoned in 1891 due to his old age and frail condition. Franklin Stone is buried with his family at Westwood Cemetery.

Constable Stone is one of two Oberlin officers to lose their life in the line of duty. The other being Patrol Officer Robert Woodwall who died in a motor vehicle crash on March 10, 1971 when his patrol vehicle slid off the icy roadway and crashed into a tree on East Hamilton Street. Constable Franklin Stone will now be added to the Lorain County Police Memorial, Greater Cleveland Peace Officers Memorial and his name will be engraved at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington D.C.

Unfortunately, Constable Stone’s memory could’ve been lost over the course of time if it wasn’t for the dedication and research of those involved. This includes the work of Maren McKee from the Oberlin Heritage Center who was able to provide me with additional articles describing the incident and even locating Constable Stone’s obituary.

Not only is this incident important to the history of Oberlin, but also Lorain County as Constable Stone is now the first recorded law enforcement death in the history of Lorain County.

I am very proud of the work which led to the rediscovery of Constable Stone and it will be one of the highlights of my career here in Oberlin. Although Constable Stone’s story was “lost” for 136 years, he can now be remembered and his life celebrated for his dedication to the safety of the citizens of Oberlin. Please share the story of Constable Stone, and when people ask, you can tell them “it happened in Oberlin.”

Oberlin is well known for its historic qualities, its strong sense of community, and high amount of community involvement. In this post we will explore the legacy of an extraordinary historian and community member, the late Richard Lothrop. His legacy lives on today through his impressively thorough collection of significant documents and newspapers from Oberlin’s history, which are now both preserved and available for research at the Oberlin Heritage Center.

Richard Lothrop was born in 1925 in Washington, D.C., and came to live in Oberlin at only three months old. He lived with his father, mother, and younger sister. His father was a professor of chemistry at Oberlin College. After graduating from Oberlin High School, Lothrop attended the College of Wooster and then worked in various college administration positions until taking a teaching job at Fairview High School. Richard went on to become “archivist emeritus” at Oberlin’s Christ Episcopal Church, and was named “Oberlinian of the Year” in 1996. This quote from his 2015 obituary in the Oberlin News-Tribune demonstrates the extent of his “unyielding dedication to his hometown”. . .

“Richard’s legacy included an almost obsessive trait to save newspaper clippings and document people, places, and events. He kept hundreds of files on subjects ranging from Oberlin events, Oberlin residents, and Oberlin College students, faculty, and staff to trains, planes, automobiles, and stamps!”[2]

I spoke with Oberlin Heritage Center Board of Trustees member Stephen Johnson, who is undertaking the immense project of sorting and preserving the files for posterity, to find out more about both Oberlin’s more recent history and Lothrop’s legacy of preservation.

Hannah Cipinko (HC): To start us off, how long have you been working with the Oberlin Heritage Center?

Steve Johnson (SJ): Well, I’ve been a trustee now for five years, and I’ve had an association with them for over twenty. We’ve been members for a long, long time. And my father was president for thirteen years of the predecessor of the Oberlin Heritage Center, O.H.I.O (Oberlin Historical and Improvement Organization) so that’s where I got my interest.

HC: Do you know how the Heritage Center in particular came to possess these documents instead of any other organization?

SJ: Our former executive director Pat Murphy was friends with Dick Lothrop and knew of his collection. Dick had assured OHC that upon his death we would receive all this material. When he went into a nursing home . . . we ended up with twelve boxes of this material, so now we’re in the process of going through it.

HC: What is that process like? Do you grab a file, or go alphabetically, and just dive in?

SJ: We’ve been working through it alphabetically. You open a file, and then . . . I sort the files into people, obituaries, and then miscellaneous, which is anything from churches, or town events, businesses in town, you know . . . anything that doesn’t qualify as people. . . We also sort out any documents from college publications because the college already has those in their archives, and there’s no need to duplicate that here . . . Once it’s sorted out, it has to be copied onto acid free paper and filed.

HC: What do you consider the most interesting story or item you have discovered so far?

SJ: I recently ran into a big stack of articles on our former congressman from Oberlin, who had also been the editor of the Oberlin News-Tribune, Charles Mosher. That was really fascinating to go through, it turns out he was quite an eloquent speaker and writer. So that was fun [laughs].

An article about Charles Mosher found in Lothrop’s collection.

The Lorain Journal, December 12th 1975 [3]

SJ: There have been articles that have gone back to World War II, which is an interest of mine, and it’s interesting to see what the town was doing as far as scrap drives, and that kind of thing, as well as the boys and women who went off to war. Then, some of the articles are from an Oberlin Times newspaper from way back in the beginning of the century, and anything in there is interesting, just to see what life was like way back when.

The newspapers back [from] anytime before 1945 are very social. So you get little half column inch things about Mrs. Jones who threw a party and tea was served with these little crumb cakes. You know, these little snippets of life in Oberlin.

HC: Things you wouldn’t ordinarily think of as history.

SJ: Exactly. It shows, definitely, a way of life that has changed. It’s all interesting stuff; when you look at it, it’s like a time capsule that you open up and all of a sudden it’s 70 years ago, 80 years ago, 90 years ago.

It’s interesting to see because sometimes you get articles that are very factual, very illuminating of a person or a thing, and then you’ll have a one column inch thing that he saved of somebody who got a traffic citation. So it’s everything in between. I’ve see the heights of Oberlin history, and I’ve also sort of seen some of the depths of Oberlin history, but it’s all history. It’s something we will keep.

HC: What’s really fascinating about this is that it’s not only a snapshot of Oberlin’s history, but also of the perspective of Richard Lothrop as someone immersed in Oberlin’s modern culture and history. Do you think there is anything to be learned about his perspective from what he chose to keep in his files? Were there any items in particular you were surprised to see that Lothrop preserved?

SJ: The thing that strikes me about this collection is just how all inclusive it is. It doesn’t seem like he left out much; if a new business opened in town and there was a newspaper article about it, he clipped it. If there was a newspaper article in the New York Times about somebody who did something fantastic, and he had an Oberlin connection, maybe graduated from Oberlin in 1935, he has that in there.

It’s an incredible collection, and I think the most amazing thing about it is how widespread it is. He didn’t focus in on just his friends or his acquaintances, he didn’t do just Oberlin government or Oberlin sports or anything else, it’s an all inclusive thing. And for him to sit there — I sometimes get a vision of him sitting alone in his house at night, going through all the newspapers, making these clippings, and filing them away. It must have taken an incredible amount of time.

HC: How long do you think it will take, in full, to sort through and organize these documents?

SJ: Right now, I’m at 13 months. I probably have close to at least 200 hours at this point, probably more than that. I can see another, two years to finish it up. It’s all got to be filed, Linda Gates here at OHC has been doing all of the filing, as I get things done she grabs them and files them. I think I’m on box four or five; I’m into the M’s right now [laughs]. I have six or seven boxes left to go. So that’s at least another year and a half. It will be three years by the time everything is done completely.

It is clear that Lothrop’s legacy is particularly present at the Oberlin Heritage Center, whose mission it is to preserve and share local history and stories such as his. Lothrop’s obituary says it best: “History was his passion. He loved to tell stories. He had stories to tell.”[2] The Oberlin Heritage Center will continue to share his stories alongside others with the addition of his files to our collections.